International Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences

Background: Children sex preferences may have significant effects in fertility behavior which is an influential component of population dynamics and could control the population size, structure, and composition. One of the core concerns of researches and policy makers is to study these determinants.Objectives: The main objective of this study is to investigate Iranian women’s sex preference and its highly influential factors through applying Classification & Regression Trees algorithm as a practical classification method.Materials: A cross-sectional study during 2014 was conducted to collect demographical data of 1250 Iranian women in age 15-49. To classify sex preferences for children, age, educational level, place of residence, and difference number of siblings for women, were nominated as predictors.Results: 71 percentages of women’s sex preference have been classified correctly (the accuracy of the model=0.71). In extracted decision tree, women's age, educational level and difference number of siblings were significant. One of the vital results indicated that educated Iranian women in different age cohorts are in favor of having girls.Conclusions: Classification & Regression Trees is an effective and easy to interpret non-parametric method which builds classification tree for predicting dependent variables.

Introduction: The purpose of this research was relationship between effective style’s management with employee’s efficiency and turnover in sport organization.Methods: Statistical population consist of all sport manager and sports staff of Golestan physical education that n= 37 top sport manager and n= 137 performational and middle manager selected as sample size. The multi-factor leadership questionnaire (MLQ, Bass & Avolio, 1996), Amabil (1996) organization creativity questionnaire and Felts (1998) self-efficiency questionnaire were used. To data analysis the MANOVA test, multi-regression analysis and Pearson coefficients in significance level of (P≤0.05) were used.Results: The results indicated that transformational style management (F=9.74, β=0.316) in comparison with transactional style management (F=5.019, β=0.109) and laissez-faire management (F=4.263, β=0.002) is the strongest factor in determination of employee creativity. Also there were significant relationship between transformational style management with staff efficiency(r= 0.23, p≤ 0.05) and turnover in employees(r = - 0.11, p≤ 0.05) .But there weren't significant and meaningful relationship between management styles with turnover. In other organizations that were use laissez-faire management, there were significant relationship between laissez-faire management style with turnover (r= 0.14, p≤ 0.05).Conclusion: Based on findings of research, suggests that employee turnover may be substantially reduced if sport manager exhibit behaviors which reflect employees’ expectations of quality management.

Couple burnout is a painfully physical, emotional and psychological exhaustion, consequences such as marital dissatisfaction and ultimately leads to divorce. The present study aimed to investigate of the Studying Personality Characteristics and the Role of Family Communication Patterns in Predicting Couple Burnout in Employees of Iranian Oil Terminals Company. For this purpose, in a descriptive study, correlational type, 200 employees were selected among married employees of Iranian oil Terminals Company.They were selected in a form of simple sampling randomly. They were tested with personality questionnaire, )NEO , Costa & McCrae), Family communications patterns questionnaire (Christensen & Sullaway) and couples burnout (Pines).For data analysis correlation coefficient and multiple regression were used. The result indicated that the except openness factor, other personality Characteristics had significant relation with couple burnout and this relation for Neuroticism was positive significant and for extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Were negative significant relation. The result also indicated that relationship between all Component communication patterns and couple burnout had significant relation and this relationship for mutual constructive communication was negative significant and for other three subscales were positive significant. The result also indicated mutual constructive communication pattern and, man Expectance / woman avoidance, woman Expectance / man avoidance predicted couple burnout. Neuroticism was the only attribute of the personality Characteristics that able to predicted couple burnout.

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparison of effectiveness of storytelling and play therapy on kindergarten children's separation anxiety.Methods: The present study was semi-experimental with control group design and included pre-test, post- test. Sampling was purposeful in which 30 children from Garmsar kindergartens who were diagnosed as suffering separation anxiety disorder were selected and randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group (10 subjects each). The instrument used in this paper was CSI4 questionnaire part (J) specifically for separation anxiety disorder. The experimental groups received eight weekly sessions of storytelling and play therapy. Analysis of the data was done by using descriptive statistics and inferential tests such as covariance and Benferroni test analysis was conducted.Results: The results showed that storytelling and play therapy were effective on reduction of separation anxiety disorder in post-test (α<0.05) but there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of storytelling and play therapy interference (α>0.05).Conclusion: Based on the results, storytelling and play therapy were applied interference methods for reducing the symptoms of separation anxiety and improving social performances of pre- school aged children.

Background: Job stress is one of the most important problems in the modern world and have created many concerns for many organizations. The aim of present study was to determine the effectiveness of job stress management on improving mental health and self-efficacy of training the teachers.Methods: Forty teachers(21 women, and 19 men) were selected by simple random sampling assigned into the experimental and control groups. With a pre-test and post-test-control group design, subjects in the experimental group, undergone sessions of stress management training both groups were evaluated using Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale(TSES) and mental health inventory(MHI) in pre-test and post-test. Data analyzed by descriptive statistics and Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Results: Findings show that there were not significant differences between two groups in pretest, but stress management training, significantly increases psychological well-being and teaching self-efficacy scores in experimental group.Conclusion: The stress management training, could be intervention program in target groups and counseling centers, and with enhancing psychological well-being and senses of teaching self-efficacy of teachers, increase education to productivity of schools.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of Worry Behaviors Inventory (WBI) in normal population.Method: For this purpose, 286 participations (first study) and 40 participations (Second study) were selected in 2017. Then Worry Behaviors Inventory (WBI), Patient Health Questionnaire-9, WHODAS-II, HAQ, PHQ-15 and CABAH were distributed among them to respond. After collecting data, the reliability of the Inventory was assessed by using SPSS-22 and Lisrel 8.8, Cronbach's alpha, retest and split-half coefficient, then the Construct validity with other questionnaires to determine the psychometric properties of the Worry Behaviors Inventory (WBI). The Factor structure was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis.Results: The results of the factor analysis indicated that WBI has two factors and checking the reliability of the Inventory using Cronbach's alpha, test-retest and split-half coefficient reflects the stability of the scale, the Construct validity of the WBI with other questionnaires showed desirable discriminant and convergence validity.Conclusions: Overall, the findings indicated that WBI has good psychometric properties in normal population, and the tool can be used in studies in somatoform disorders. However, it seems that Worry Behaviors is the fundamental structure of somatoform disorders.     

Background and Purpose: Emotion regulation therapy (ERT) is one of the third wave of cognitive behavioral therapies which address patients’ problem by improving four emotion regulation skills (i.e. mindfulness, allowing or acceptance, distance, and reappraisal). ERT could be applied for disorders with strong emotional element. Therefore, this study aims to determine the efficacy of emotion regulation skills on reduction of psychopathological symptoms, difficulty of emotion regulation and improvement of quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Method: In an experimental single-case design of baseline type, 5 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) were included in the therapy process after they satisfied necessary condition. The patients had 9 sessions therapy (i.e. 90 minutes). In order to evaluate efficacy of the therapy, the measures of Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome Quality Of Life (IBS-QOL34) were used. To analyze the collected data, certain diagrams, reliable change index, improvement percentage, and corrected size effect (i.e. Hedges' g) were used.
Findings: The emotion regulation therapy reduced the psychopathological symptoms, difficulty of emotion regulation and increase of quality of life in patients with IBS. Total percentages of improvement of anxiety, depression, difficulty of emotion regulation and quality of life were 32.25, 34.68, 40.21 and 58.44 percent respectively.
Conclusion: The ERT reduced psychopathological symptoms and difficulty of emotion regulation and improved quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome significantly. Consequently, therapists seem to be able to use the skills of this treatment to reduce the psychological problems of these patients.

Objective: The main purpose of this study was modifying anxiety and alexithymia by instructing emotional regulation skills among anxious female students in Tehran. Method: Quasi-experimental design was applied in this study. Convenient sampling method with 50 volunteer female high school students was utilized. Their scores ranged from 26-36 in Beck anxiety questionnaire and eligible to exclude- include criteria were selected and participants were randomly assigned into two experimental, and control group (each group included 25 subjects). Results: Data analysis and applying ANCOVA methods revealed the instructing emotional regulation skills could significantly decrease anxiety, and alexithymia among subjects in experimental in comparison to subjects in control group (P<0.05). Conclusion: Implementing cognitive and emotional regulation skills such as restructuring of content and process of sabotaging beliefs, modifying negative emotions, using reappraisal, reinterpretation, problem solving, mindfulness techniques, and emotional regulation could reduce anxiety and alexithymia symptoms in anxious students.